As the number of commercial and custom software applications continues to increase, there are increasing benefits to being able to share data between multiple software applications. This allows users of one of the software applications to view and modify files created by other applications. It can also be useful for different applications to be able to share data when they use the same types of data for different purposes or use the data of the other application type to supplement the data to which they have access.
In many industry domains, organizations use common standards. To conform to an evolving standard, users typically need to continuously modify their applications and databases, which are inordinate tasks. To complicate the matter further, when the standard changes, it is frequently necessary to alter user applications and convert associated databases to accommodate new features. Thus, the latest available standard can be cumbersome and expensive to implement and use, and it may not meet the needs of the broad community of users. Because the standard dictates the types of transactions that can be implemented through electronic data transfer, it may severely limit business practices.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method of sharing information among diverse applications that are based on an evolving standard which is readily adaptable to changing commercial environments. Also, there is a need for a system that does not require complex, time consuming, and error-prone modifications of existing applications and databases in order to facilitate information sharing. Furthermore, there is a need for one or more standards and associated methods and systems that can be readily adapted by a broad community of users who desire to share information.